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Recently, in my class I talked to students about what elements in a painting draw the eye.

There are many things, but one of them is texture. An artist can either replicate it, or allow the paint or pastel itself become very textural.

There are times when you would want heavy impasto strokes...and times where the area of a painting needs to be more quiet.

"Precious Gold", pastel, 16x18

Here is a painting where I really piled on the pastel in the lower right third, to bring that area forward.

This is a close up, where you can see the very heavily applied pigment in the yellow orange strokes.

Using thinly appled paint, or delicately placed, or blended  pastel will have the opposite effect.

Here is an example of that.

"Outback Pastoral", pastel 12x16

You can see a lot of texture in the foreground bushes and grasses...heavily applied.

Behind that area, the smaller trees, particularly in the right part of ther painting are delicately painted in with light strokes.

It helps them recede, which is where they should be in the painting.

Light strokes or paint versus heavy, thick, juicy paint. It makes a difference in a painting !

Thinking about it while painting can help to create depth.